College CemeteryakaCollege HillakaWillson's Grove

Township 15N, Range 10WMorgan County, Illinois

No visible trace remains of this cemetery, which was formerly on what is now the 600 block of
Lincoln Avenue in Jacksonville. Jonathan Baldwin Turner Junior High School now occupies the site. The
Jacksonville Journal of Sunday, May 4, 1902 carried this news item about College Cemetery:

OLD COLLEGE CEMETERY

The so-called College cemetery on Lincoln avenue was platted in the early days of Illinois College,
the purpose of the trustees being to supply a want keenly felt and at the same time to derive some
revenue from the sale of lots. The college at that time owned a good deal of land which stretched out
to the south from the college campus and a few acres were fenced off for cemetery purposes. The old
New England idea of cemetery making was carried out, in that space was economized and the graves
were placed very close together, the head stone of one being next to the foot stone of another. Before
the other cemeteries came into general use, many old families held lots in this cemetery and buried
their dead there. Among those who were interred there were Governor Duncan and Augustin Jean Frederick Provost,
stepson of Aaron Burr, these being two of a long list which might be mentioned. Long sice they were moved
to other burying grounds and the same is true of nearly all who were ever laid to rest in the "College Cemetery."

An earlier story in the Jacksonville Journal of May 30, 1870, listed two soldiers known to have been buried
in College Cemetery: William Alexander and Thomas A. Smith. This cemetery was on land formerly owned
by Judge Aaron Willson. In 1824, the site was known as "Willson's Grove".

The Jacksonville Journal of June 26, 1925, carried a letter written by Katherine Hamilton Boyd in which
she mentioned a relative, Martin Robertson, who was buried in the old deserted burying ground to the
left of the road on the way to Diamond Grove and the Catholic Cemetery. College Cemetery was a cornfield when she
was a child. When the site was buldozed in preparation for the construction of Jonathan Baldwin
Turner Junior High School, a number of tombstones and burials were allegedly uncovered and
smashed by the operation, being covered over by the landscaping. But two cast iron coffins
were moved to the Potters Field Section of Diamond Grove Cemetery. One of the men who helped move the
two coffins told this writer that each coffin had a small window in the top, and that the bodies of an
unidentified man and woman were in excellent condition. He described the color of their skin as being of
a dull gold. This was in August of 1955. From the burial book of Diamond Grove Cemetery and news stories
in microfilm records of old Jacksonville Journals, the compilers have copied the names of persons who were
formerly buried here.